The Moon

Create your own book about the moon. Include captions, subheadings, bold print, vocabulary, etc.

Research one of the astronauts who went to the moon. Find out all you can about this person. Create a timeline about their life.

Find out what scientists believe about how the moon originated. Include all theories as well as evidence. Write a well-composed paper.

Discuss attributes of the moon that scientists might measure.

Order the distance to the moon, the sun and another solar body.

Chart the number of days in a month that your class can observe the moon during the school day. Cloudy days might not allow your class to see the moon that day, or the moon might not be visible until after kids go home. Determine if the final number is odd or even.

Use images of the moon in all of its phases to create a pattern. Share with another student and have them create the next five items in your pattern.

Patterns of the motion of the Sun, Moon, and stars in the sky can be observed, described, and predicted.

Examples of patterns could include that the Sun and Moon appear to rise in one part of the sky, move across the sky, and set.

The patterns of an object's motion in various situations can be observed and measured; when that past motion exhibits a regular pattern, future motion can be predicted from it.

Different solutions need to be tested in order to determine which of them best solves the problem, given the criteria and the constraints.

The orbits of Earth around the Sun and of the Moon around Earth, together with the rotation of Earth about an axis between its North and South poles, cause observable patterns. These include day and night; daily changes in the length and direction of shadows; and different positions of the sun, moon, and stars at different times of the day, month, and year.

Gravitational forces are always attractive. There is a gravitational force between any two masses, but it is very small except when one or both of the objects have large mass (such as a planet.)

Examples of evidence for arguments could include data generated from simulations or digital tools; and charts displaying mass, strength of interaction, distance from the Sun, and orbital periods of objects within the solar system.

Emphasis is on the analysis of data from Earth-based instruments, space-based telescopes, and spacecraft to determine similarities and differences among solar system objects. Examples of scale properties include the sizes of an object's layers, surface features, and orbital radius.

The solar system consists of the Sun and a collection of objects, including planets and their moons, and asteroids that are held in orbit around the star by its gravitational pull on them.

The solar system appears to have formed from a disk of dust and gas, drawn together by gravity.

Emphasis for the model is on gravity as the force that holds together the solar system and Milky Way Galaxy and controls orbital motions within them. Examples of models can be physical (such as computer visualizations of elliptical orbits) or conceptual (such as mathematical proportions relative to the size of familiar objects.)

Patterns of the apparent motion of the sun, the moon, and stars in the sky can be observed, described, predicted, and explained with models.

This model of the solar system can explain eclipses of the sun and the moon.